Archive for February 2013

Do we want to live in a world that’s always on? Walk into any bar in places like San Francisco, Seattle or Los Angeles, and there are hordes of people that are splitting their attention span their “Jesus” phones and conversations.

The key experiential question of Google Glass isn’t what it’s like to wear them, it’s what it’s like to be around someone else who’s wearing them. I’ll give an easy example. Your one-on-one conversation with someone wearing Google Glass is likely to be annoying, because you’ll suspect that you don’t have their undivided attention. And you can’t comfortably ask them to take the glasses off (especially when, inevitably, the device is integrated into prescription lenses).

But wait, there’s more!

Finally – here’s where the problems really start – you don’t know if they’re taking a video of you.

The user wears them unintentionally becomes part of the world’s biggest webcam network.

Now pretend you don’t know a single person who wears Google Glass… and take a walk outside. Anywhere you go in public – any store, any sidewalk, any bus or subway – you’re liable to be recorded: audio and video. Fifty people on the bus might be Glassless, but if a single person wearing Glass gets on, you – and all 49 other passengers – could be recorded. Not just for a temporary throwaway video buffer, like a security camera, but recorded, stored permanently, and shared to the world.

…

Google Glass is like one camera car for each of the thousands, possibly millions, of people who will wear the device – every single day, everywhere they go – on sidewalks, into restaurants, up elevators, around your office, into your home. From now on, starting today, anywhere you go within range of a Google Glass device, everything you do could be recorded and uploaded to Google’s cloud, and stored there for the rest of your life. You won’t know if you’re being recorded or not; and even if you do, you’ll have no way to stop it.

“It’s weirdly self-centered and creepy to be broadcasting my whereabouts to the whole world, and then be rewarded for it with some worthless piece of clipart,” said Tampa, FL college student Theresa Gibson. “I don’t want to know where other people are, I don’t want them to know where I am, and I definitely don’t want it all to be tracked by a website that pits us against each other to see who can share our locations the most. Frankly, it doesn’t make any sense why that would ever appeal to anyone.”

And…

“Nobody needs to get my immediate take on everything I see online,” said Atlanta printing consultant Deirdre Levinson, questioning the merits of any site that, without knowing her level of intelligence or expertise in a particular topic, would deem her worthy enough to engage in a discussion. “And they’re sorely mistaken if they believe I could actually add something of value to the conversation. At best I’m just going to parrot back some loose approximation of what I’ve heard before, which will just prove that I never should have weighed in in the first place.”

And…

“Don’t always ask me to send everything I’ve read to everyone I know. And by the same token, I don’t need to know if they’ve read the same thing. That information means nothing to either of us,” said Glendale, AZ shopkeeper Dan Allenby, who could not think of a single instance where it would be helpful to sign into another website through his Facebook account. “If I wanted to tell someone about something, I’ll just tell them individually. Or better yet, they’ll stumble across it on their own.”

Patrick Neeman presents: The process of getting a great user experience job isn’t as hard as you would think. This workshop covers all aspects of the interview process, from presenting a great resume and portfolio, what to expect during an in person interview.

Mobile as a UX Driver

Jon Fox presents: Showcasing how the user experience movement of simple design, quick data consumption and connectivity is driven by the rise in mobile devices, small screen applications and on-the-go mobility.